


The Creeping Men

by okapi



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Crack, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Story: The Adventure of the Creeping Man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 11:15:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11531067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: Six paths cross in Regent's Park at midnight. ACD. Crack. Holmes/Watson. Lestrade/Gregson.





	1. Lestrade/Gregson

“Gregson, you better have a damn good reason for luring me to the darkest corner of the park at this hour. Only things stirring right now are blackguards and night creatures at the zoo. Which are you? And what’s with all the secrecy? A midnight summons? Thoroughly suspicious.”

“I got a reputation, Lestrade.”

“For being as thick as a rock? Yeah, don’t worry. That’s safe with me.”

“For hating you.”

“Listen, Gregson, it’s the end of a horrid week—“

“I know—“

“—I’ve been waist-deep in human misery for days, not one case solved, ‘cause, of course, they’re not interesting enough for any assistance from Baker Street, just ordinary, everyday suffering, and to top it all, Watson’s latest story just appeared in _The Strand_ and he _still_ claims that I bear a close resemblance to a bloody ferret!”

“—better than a rat, but, yeah. That’s why—oh, just here!”

He thrust the object at Lestrade’s chest.

“What’s this? It’s cloudy, but not raining, Gregson, or do your powers of observation stop at the weather? Why do I need an umbrella?”

“It’s Phillimore’s umbrella.”

“Your old case? The one that even you-know-who couldn’t solve?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“It’s for your, you know, crime museum.”

“What?”

“Would you rather I call it by its official name, Auxiliary Storage for Evidence, Units A-D?”

Lestrade huffed. “How do you know about it?”

“It’s the worst-kept secret at the Yard, Lestrade! Everybody knows! And everybody likes it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, Hopkins even visited it in disguise. He said it was, and I quote, ‘very professionally done,’ and you know Hopkins…” He rolled his eyes.

“By Jove, was that him with the perambulator last week? He was the ugliest nanny I’d ever seen!”

“Yeah, well, since the Phillimore case got so much press, but it’s never going to be solved…”

“Ah,” said Lestrade slowly. He nodded and studied the umbrella. “This will be quite the draw for the curious! Yes, sir, make their choice to part with their penny, donate it to my pension, even sweeter. Thank you! Wait, why are you doing this? You hate me.”

“Yeah, but you had a rotten week.”

Lestrade stared. Gregson stared back. Then Lestrade said,

“Worst-kept secret of the Yard, is it? Yeah, well, I know what the best kept secret is.”

“What?”

“There isn’t—and never has been—a Mrs. Gregson in Surrey, unless that’s where they buried your Ma.”

Gregson flinched, but said nothing.

“I’m a detective, Inspector,” continued Lestrade. “It’s easy to make the connections, just like Mister Baker Street,” he snapped his fingers, “when you know what you’re looking at, when you recognise what you’re looking at. I can’t blame you.”

Gregson stared. Lestrade stared back. Then Gregson said,

“I just don’t want the attention of any weeping widows or scheming matchmakers or—“

“Like I said, I can’t blame you. I wish I’d thought of it myself before I joined the Yard. Too late now,” he began to chuckle, “unless Hopkins’ especially keen on another stroll with perambulator.”

Gregson laughed.

“Well, thank you,” said Lestrade. “You have my word: I won’t tell anyone about any of it.”

“Good. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Lestrade tucked the umbrella under his arm and turned. He’d taken about a dozen steps before his thoughts settled.

He ran back.

And crashed into Gregson.

“Yeah?” he asked, the word more breath than noise.

“Yeah,” was the short and no less muted reply.

Lestrade spat into his palm as he heard the very faint, but utterly unmistakable sound of a cock hurriedly and quietly being freed from the confines of trousers. He laid one arm across Gregson’s shoulders and Gregson leaned into him until their heads touched. From afar, had any moonlight shone through the clouds and cover of trees, they might have been two vagabonds huddled over a fire or a shared flask.

Lestrade dropped his slicked hand between them and wrapped his fingers ‘round a shaft that, even in the dark and in its half-hard state, conjured up filthy images that made his mouth water.

“Know what’s in Surrey?” whispered Gregson in his ear.

Lestrade shook his head as he stroked, slowly but firmly.

“Cottage. All mine. Oh, God.”

The final words were a quiet groan as the cock in Lestrade’s hand stiffened. He sped up his rhythm and asked,

“Retirement?”

Lestrade felt Gregson’s nod.

“Vegetables. Country air. Dog—going to name him G!”

Lestrade snorted, then sank his teeth into the side of Gregson’s neck to stifle a laugh. Another muffled noise filled the silence as Gregson tensed and came.

Gregson pushed a handkerchief into Lestrade’s palm. Lestrade wiped his hand and dabbed at the front of his coat. His mouth began to water again as he felt Gregson sinking to his knees.

A new piece for his museum and his prick sucked in plain air? Who’d have thought so a hellish a week would end so divinely?

He grinned and was just about to answer Gregson’s impatient nuzzling of his crotch when—

Something!

He saw something. He heard something.

And Gregson must’ve heard something too, for he shot to his feet, his head knocking Lestrade in the chin as he rose. Lestrade was blinded by the pain of his bit tongue but still clasped Gregson tight against him and clamped a hand over Gregson’s mouth.

Just then, Lestrade’s thoughts caught up with his eyes.

Not something.

Someone.

 _Someones_.

The two most damnable someones in London!

With one finger, Lestrade drew the letters ‘H’ and ‘W’ on Gregson’s chest, and so close were they that even in the shadows he could see Gregson’s eyes widen into saucers and his eyebrows jump to his hairline.

Lestrade then traced the word ‘no.’

Holmes and Watson hadn’t spotted them, but they would need to plan their exits very carefully—and have a bit of luck—to avoid crossing paths.

And what were _they_ doing here at this hour, anyway?

Lestrade shook his head. No time for that now. He had to—

_“AH-HA! I’VE GOT YOU!”_


	2. Holmes/Watson

“Holmes, I know you cannot resist a bit of theatrics, but, honestly, a coded note, affixed to the bottom of my glass, surreptitiously passed to me at the club? A midnight summons to a dark, deserted corner of Regent’s Park? I’ve my revolver, of course, but you said it wasn’t dangerous, so I assume it’s not for a case?”

“Not for a case, no. You know better than anyone that my work is, by design and desire, all but dried up. A few loose ends are left to cauterise and then I shall be wholly retired from professional life. No, it’s just a whim.”

“A whim?”

“I have a short list of them, things I would like to do in London before we board the train to Sussex and bid this city a final _adieu_.”

Watson stared at Holmes’s barely visible silhouette. The canopy of trees might have admitted some light, but thick clouds filled the night sky.

“Yes, it is a pity,” said Holmes, as if reading Watson’s thoughts. “I had hoped for a bit of moonlight. Ah, well.”

He then swept Watson up into his arms and silenced Watson’s yelp of surprise with a kiss.

* * *

“You are an incurable romantic, Mister Holmes,” said Watson when their lips finally parted.

“True,” said Holmes, then he ground his lower half against Watson’s and added, “and not quite true.”

Watson smirked. “Something a bit naughtier than a kiss in the moonlight on your list, is it?”

Holmes shrugged, with a nonchalance that Watson knew, by the hardness digging into him, to be wholly feigned.

“We might be caught. We might be arrested,” said Watson. “Or is the risk part of the allure?”

“Discovery is highly improbable, though not impossible. I’ve taken efforts to minimise the risk. No, the allure is simply to love my love in plain air, for once to not hide behind thick curtains and double-locked doors in this metropolis that would brand us criminals for any public expression of that sentiment which is, and here I speak only for myself, the cornerstone of my life.”

Watson stared once more and then decided that the sacrifice the cleanliness of his trouser knees was no sacrifice at all. He held tight to Holmes’s arms, began to sink to the ground.

Holmes stopped his descent. “You first.”

Watson raised one eyebrow and whispered, “I’m not…”

“But you will be, if you’ll allow.”

Watson would allow.

And Watson would bite his lower lip to keep his groans from filling the inky stillness.

And the attentions that Holmes paid to Watson’s prick were nothing short of a five-course seduction: nuzzling, licking, kissing, sucking, and swallowing.

Watson gripped Holmes’s hair with two hands, tightening and loosening in a lover’s Morse code, which Holmes, being Holmes, interpreted beautifully and to which he responded even more beautifully by increasing and decreasing the pressure and force of his suckling in a manner so prescient that it edged Watson toward madness.

How Watson managed to come without making a sound, he would never be able to say.

And though he would have never thought to include this tableau in any list of his own, by the time that Holmes was rising to his feet and Watson was tasting his sex on Holmes’s lips, he had no doubt as to the allure.

He was on fire.

He shoved a rough hand down the front of Holmes’s trousers and, goaded by the tiny sounds of stitching straining to pop, wrapped his fingers ‘round Holmes’s throbbing, leaking, gloriously erect cock.

But much too late for his lover’s pride, Watson remembered this was supposed to be _romantic_.

“No,” grunted Holmes, dispelling the unspoken concern. “I’m too far gone.”

Three strokes and the cock in Watson’s hand was spent. What mess had not scattered to the ground was quickly mopped up.

Watson almost chuckled.

What a scene they made!

Finally, when they had both set themselves, and each other, to rights, he said,

“Holmes.”

Even to his own ears, it sounded like a drunk’s slur, and Watson acknowledged the likeness of sensation, heady, blissful. He was struck by the very strong urge to draw this beautiful creature into his lap and pet him until he purred in satisfaction.

Now who was the romantic?

And perhaps Holmes felt something similar, for he tenderly pressed his lips to Watson’s temple and said,

“Home.”

They strode hand-in-hand as they made their way through the darkest section of the park.

Suddenly, Watson felt a hard squeeze ‘round his palm, but Holmes didn’t slow or stop. If anything, his steps grew swifter. He didn’t turn his head or even change his path for about forty paces. Then he ducked behind a large tree and drew Watson to him with considerable violence.

“Gregson. Lestrade,” he breathed.

Watson froze.

What were _they_ doing here at this hour?

Watson shook his head. The more important question was had he and Holmes been spotted by the two inspectors.

Holmes nodded.

Watson’s head spun. His knees buckled. And without Holmes’s fierce grip upon him, he would have certainly crumpled to the ground.

They were ruined.

Both of he and Holmes were ruined, for certainly Lestrade and Gregson would have to act on their offices and arrest them. Or blackmail them, though Watson had never thought villainy of either until that moment.

Whatever way it ended, it would end badly.

Very badly.

Newspaper headlines.

Court case.

They could flee—

Two fingers pressed to Watson’s lips, halting his spiraling thoughts.

A quiet shushing.

Watson kept his eyes fixed on Holmes’s as the two fingers became a whole hand. The meaning was clear.

Stop.

Wait.

Watson stopped.

Watson waited.

Holmes’s hand left Watson’s lips and went to the shell of his own ear.

Listen.

Watson listened but he could hear nothing above the pound of his heart, the rush of his blood, his ragged breath.

But Holmes heard something, that much was clear from the very familiar, hound-on-the-scent expression on his face.

_"AH-HA! I’VE GOT YOU!”_


	3. Hopkins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! It turned out to be mostly a Lestrade/Gregson love story! Quite the surprise--even for me!

_“AH-HA! I’VE GOT YOU!”_

Four sets of ears heard the shout, and when four sets of feet reached its source, four voices spoke as one.

“Hopkins!”

“Thank heavens you got my message!” cried Hopkins as the four rushed towards him. He covered his head with his hands just as a tree branch laden with leaves dropped upon him.

Everyone looked up, all squinting into the darkness, as Holmes replied reassuringly,

“Yes, naturally, we came at once.”

Watson coughed.

“He meant the Yard,” said Gregson. “ _We_ came at once.”

Lestrade coughed.

“I sent messages to Baker Street _and_ the Yard,” said Hopkins, throwing off the branch and brushing leaves from his shoulders, “I might have handled him on my own, but it got late and he disappeared into the park—“

Watson drew his revolver. “Criminal? Fugitive?”

“Good Lord,” breathed Holmes. “Professor Presbury! And he looks more animal than when we last saw him, Watson!”

“Presbury? The monkey-man?” asked Gregson. “That’s what you’ve been up to this week, Hopkins?”

Hopkins ignored him and turned to Holmes.

“I am grateful that you disclosed the whole affair to me, Mister Holmes,” he said, “for when I heard a report of strange goings-on in Camford, I was more alive to the possibilities than most. Despite being under close watch and medical care, Professor Presbury escaped, leaving evidence of having injected the contents of two phials, the one he received from abroad and one of a substance unknown, into his bloodstream. I travelled to Camford to aid the local constabulary who were completely overwhelmed. All signs pointed to him taking a train to London and scaring quite a few people along the way. Long journey, but I got him! Or at least I thought so until now.”

He looked up, then glanced at Lestrade and said, “Give me that!”

“What in the devil!” cried Lestrade as Hopkins tore the umbrella from his hand.

Gregson said, “Just a minute, you—!“

But Hopkins had just opened the umbrella when a second, larger shower of leaves rained down.

“Oh, no! There he goes!” cried Watson, swatting away the falling debris.

The clouds lifted ever so slightly, affording light enough for a shadowy figure to be seen hurling himself into the boughs of a neighbouring tree, which swayed and shook with his weight.

Watson raised his revolver, then hesitated. “Need more light.”

“But, Watson, is it right to shoot a man who’s clearly ill, mentally as well as physically, and innocent of any serious crime as far as we know, except to his own body?” cautioned Holmes. “See if you can scare him into that tree over there. Any tree he’d choose at that point will be too small to hold him. He’ll have nowhere to go, but down.”

“And we’ll be waiting,” said Gregson.

* * *

“Tobias, really!” protested Lestrade when Gregson had thrown off his coat and collar and began rolling up his sleeves. “You’re not going to climb up there?”

“Watch me,” said Gregson with a grin.

“Why not wait for him to fall! If we’re lucky—”

“I make my own luck.”

_POW!_

“Here he comes,” shouted Hopkins, scurrying up the side of the tree opposite Gregson.

Holmes and Watson approached on foot while Hopkins and Gregson shimmied up the tree.

_POW!_

“Professor Presbury!” called Holmes. “I implore you to surrender peacefully. Only the material, the sensual, the worldly prolong their worthless lives at such grievous costs. The spiritual do not avoid the call to something higher!”

“Holmes, is _now_ the time for philosophy, natural or otherwise?” grumbled Watson.

“When is it _not_ time for philosophy, Watson?”

“And I here was looking forward to retirement with you.”

“AARGH!”

As Holmes had predicted, Presbury had realised his folly too late and slammed into Gregson and Hopkins.

And as if on cue, the clouds parted.

Down the three fell. They landed with a thud on the hard soil.

“It’s as I said,” said Holmes calmly, as he stepped into the shaft of moonlight like an actor hitting the stage mark for his soliloquy. “When one tries to rise above Nature one is liable to fall below it.”

“Holmes! Help or do shut up!” cried Watson with his revolver trained on the raging, snarling, rolling clump of limbs. “I’ve a one-in-three chance.”

Just then, Hopkins managed to free himself and scramble from the fray. He drew out a long skein of rope from a trouser pocket. “Got this from a friend at the Zoo!”

“Why didn’t you get a tranquilising gun, too?” cried Watson.

“Pin ‘im, Gregson. I’ll tie him up!” said Hopkins.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” said Gregson. “He’s ripping my arms out the sockets!”

“Get off him, you ape!” shouted Lestrade.

_WHACK! WHA—crack!_

“I’ve had just about enough of this bloody week!” Lestrade growled as he threw the splintered umbrella to the ground and snatched Watson’s revolver from his hand.

_WHAM!_

“There’s your tranquilising gun,” he said when the revolver was once again in Watson’s hands after crashing into Presbury’s head. Presbury himself, though still sprawled atop Gregson, was motionless, with blood running down the side of his head. “Let’s tie him up and get him out of here before he comes out of his daze.”

They rolled Presbury aside and Gregson grunted,

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” said Lestrade, offering him a hand. “I thought I’d try making my own luck.”

* * *

“There,” said Watson. “The last of the wounded bandaged.”

“Well, I must be off,” said Hopkins quickly. “And since I was the one to do almost all of the legwork on this matter, I think it is fitting that I—“

As he spoke, Watson looked at Holmes and Holmes looked at Watson. Gregson looked at Lestrade and Lestrade looked at Gregson.

Lestrade spoke.

“Hopkins, we’re not going to cheat you out of your press.”

“Good,” said Hopkins, reaching for his coat. “Because it’s only fair—“

“And I am all but retired. Any publicity at this point would be loathsome, tedious, not desired. In fact, I’d prefer that my name and Watson’s not be mentioned at all.”

“Yeah, mine, too,” said Gregson.

Lestrade nodded.

“Well, that’s settled,” said Hopkins. “Thank you to all of you. I’m on my way back to the office, of course, to write the full report.”

“But it’s almost morning,” said Watson.

“Excellent!” cried Hopkins, then he hurried down the stairs.

“How observant, Watson,” murmured Holmes.

The two Yarders took turns blinking at the dawning light and sighing weary sighs.

“You need to take it easy for a day or two, Inspector Gregson,” said Watson as he packed up his first aid supplies. “You took the brunt of Presbury’s violence.”

“Yeah, maybe, I’ll go down and see the missus in Surrey,” he said. “You’re invited, Inspector, if you need to get London out of your lungs for a bit. She’d be happy to have you. Sorry about your umbrella.”

“Thank you and thank you for the offer. I’ll consider it,” said Lestrade as he helped Gregson into his coat. “Well, good night, or rather, good day, gentlemen.”

“Inspectors,” said Watson.

Holmes nodded to the men as they exited the room.

When the front door had closed, Watson said, “Well, those two seem to have finally put away the knives they always have into one another. Not feuding like a pair of rival beauties today, at least.”

“No,” said Holmes with a smirk. “I suppose we all grow a bit softer, gentler with age. Us, too. But as soon as it’s light enough to respectfully request a pot of Mrs. Hudson formidable coffee, we must do so.”

“Why? I was thinking of going to bed. To sleep.” He yawned. “I’m afraid I’m in no state for anything more,” he added with chagrin. "Getting softer myself."

“Nonsense. We need coffee, Watson, because I lied.”

“About what?”

He grinned. “I have a case, one that may prove to be far more interesting than Professor Presbury’s. A final case, Watson, worthy of the name. Perhaps. Solve the unsolved? Yes, it has allure.”

He strode to his coat, which was hanging on the rack, and produced several bits of broken umbrella.

Watson frowned. “That?”

“Is James Phillimore’s,” said Holmes.

“How on earth—?”

Holmes raised a halting hand. “That’s for another moment. For now, look.”

The handle was broken.

And a sliver of paper was sticking out.

Their eyes met.

“Coffee.”

“Forceps.”

“The game—“

“—may still be afoot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
